See How A Pro Transformed My Crappy Resume To An Excellent One We all know there is no such thing as a perfect resume. There are so many rules out there that sometimes even recruiters cant agree on what you should or shouldnt include. However, you can follow the basic resume rules to perfect your resume and make it stand out. To get an objective and professional opinion of my resume, I reached out to Amanda Augustine, career expert at TheLadders, to revise my resume, which I hadnt updated since shortly after starting here at Business Insider. Below is my original resume: It wasnt surprising that Augustine ripped my resume apart. Here are the critiques she offered on my really, really bad resume: Dont use headers or footers. Although it may look neat and concise to display contact information in the header, it can confuse an applicant tracking system, says Augustine. Instead, she advises to list contact information within the body of the document. Theres no need to list your street address. You don’t need to list your street address in the contact information, says Augustine. The city, state, and zip code are plenty. In fact, if you were trying to relocate, I’d advise you to remove the entire mailing address from your resume. Include a URL to your professional online profile. The latest Jobvite social recruiting survey found that 93% of recruiters will look at a candidate’s social media presence, so make it easy on them by including a URL along with your contact information, says Augustine. For most, this means a link to your LinkedIn profile. This will prevent recruiters from having to guess or mistaking you for someone else. Given the nature of your work and your career goals, consider including your Twitter handle, says Augustine. Before you add your Twitter handle and LinkedIn URL, make sure your profiles are fully fleshed out and align with your professional brand and goals. Include your professional title at the top. My resume is missing a professional title at the top of the page, which Augustine says should be located below contact information and above core competencies and work experience. This is not necessarily the title that you currently have, but should tell the reader exactly the type of work youre targeting. For instance, Augustine advises me to have a combination of Journalist, Reporter, and Editor in the title. You can take it a step further and have a line directly below that to describe your specialties, she says. Include a professional summary. Your professional summary is basically your elevator pitch in approximately three to five lines that should include what youre great at, passionate about, and why your experience is valuable to your targeted employer. Clearly spell out your qualifications, based on your career goals. Since language skills are often sought after, I recommend putting Fluent in Vietnamese and English at the very end of your professional summary, says Augustine.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 05:09:53 +0000
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